An-8 crash near Novgorod
Soviet Air Force, 930th Military Transport Aviation Regiment Antonov An-8 and Soviet Air Force, 930th Military Transport Aviation Regiment Antonov An-8 · Errors by the crew and air traffic control
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 1
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Military
Aircraft 1 · Antonov An-8
- Aircraft type
- Antonov AN-8
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- 5
- Route
- From Krechevitsy, NovgorodTo not recorded
Aircraft 2 · Antonov An-8
- Aircraft type
- Antonov AN-8
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Krechevitsy, NovgorodTo not recorded
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Environmental issues › Operating environment
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Estimated position: Высокое (Чудовский район), near the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
The An-8 crash near Novgorod was an aviation accident involving a Soviet Air Force An-8 military transport aircraft that occurred on Friday 4 October 1963 in the area of Novgorod, in which 5 people were killed.
Crash
The crew of military unit 15478 (the 930th Military Transport Aviation Regiment, based at that time in Krechevitsy) and was performing a paradrop flight. It was night and the weather conditions were difficult when the aircraft flown by Kuksa's crew took off from Krechevitsy airfield. Following it at an interval of 5 minutes, an aircraft whose commander was Yeroshin took off. Then the navigator of Kuksa's crew began to calibrate the RBP-3 bombsight (used on transport aircraft as an on-board autonomous navigation aid), but became absorbed in it, as a result of which the An-8 flew on after the abeam point not for 3 minutes but for 5, since another radar landmark was mistakenly taken as the start of the 3rd turn. Because of this, Kuksa's aircraft ended up behind Yeroshin's aircraft, but since the flight was taking place at night in cloud, the pilots could not see each other. Then, while listening to the radio exchange, Kuksa mistakenly concluded that Yeroshin was catching up with him, so he increased the speed of his aircraft. Then the collision occurred. The guns of the tail turret smashed into the cockpit, immediately killing the aircraft commander. Having lost control, the An-8 crashed to the ground near the village of Vysokoye (Chudovsky District). 5 people on board the aircraft were killed in the crash. The assistant aircraft commander Varentsev managed to bail out by parachute and survived. The crew of the second aircraft was unharmed.
Investigation and cause
Causes
According to the commission's conclusion, the crash was caused by violations in the work of Kuksa's crew, who did not keep to the route of the paradrop flight and did not monitor the navigator's actions, as well as poor organisation and control of flights, since the flight directors did not monitor the aircraft's flights and all crews were controlled on a single channel. In addition, the paradrop flights were conducted on a right-hand circuit, while the landing approach was on a left-hand one. Under these conditions the paradrop flights should have been performed at two flight levels.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Russian Wikipedia article “Катастрофа Ан-8 под Новгородом” (revision 150406355, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
Sources
Russian Wikipedia article: Катастрофа Ан-8 под Новгородом
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 150406355 · 2025-12-02 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q18274869
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- ru Wikipedia article "Катастрофа Ан-8 под Новгородом" (page 5158343, revision 150406355), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- place the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata coordinates)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- operator named as an armed force or military unit in the infobox
- Fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Russian Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.